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PF.CONF(5) FreeBSD File Formats Manual PF.CONF(5)
NAMEpf.conf -- packet filter configuration file
DESCRIPTION
The pf(4) packet filter modifies, drops or passes packets according to
rules or definitions specified in pf.conf.
STATEMENT ORDER
There are seven types of statements in pf.conf:
Macros
User-defined variables may be defined and used later, simplifying
the configuration file. Macros must be defined before they are
referenced in pf.conf.
Tables
Tables provide a mechanism for increasing the performance and flex-
ibility of rules with large numbers of source or destination
addresses.
Options
Options tune the behaviour of the packet filtering engine.
TrafficNormalization (e.g. scrub)
Traffic normalization protects internal machines against inconsis-
tencies in Internet protocols and implementations.
Queueing
Queueing provides rule-based bandwidth control.
Translation (Various forms of NAT)
Translation rules specify how addresses are to be mapped or redi-
rected to other addresses.
PacketFiltering
Packet filtering provides rule-based blocking or passing of pack-
ets.
With the exception of macros and tables, the types of statements should
be grouped and appear in pf.conf in the order shown above, as this
matches the operation of the underlying packet filtering engine. By
default pfctl(8) enforces this order (see setrequire-order below).
Comments can be put anywhere in the file using a hash mark (`#'), and
extend to the end of the current line.
Additional configuration files can be included with the include keyword,
for example:
include "/etc/pf/sub.filter.conf"
MACROS
Macros can be defined that will later be expanded in context. Macro
names must start with a letter, and may contain letters, digits and
underscores. Macro names may not be reserved words (for example pass,
in, out). Macros are not expanded inside quotes.
For example,
ext_if = "kue0"
all_ifs = "{" $ext_if lo0 "}"
pass out on $ext_if from any to any
pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 25
TABLES
Tables are named structures which can hold a collection of addresses and
networks. Lookups against tables in pf(4) are relatively fast, making a
single rule with tables much more efficient, in terms of processor usage
and memory consumption, than a large number of rules which differ only in
IP address (either created explicitly or automatically by rule expan-
sion).
Tables can be used as the source or destination of filter rules, scrub
rules or translation rules such as nat or rdr (see below for details on
the various rule types). Tables can also be used for the redirect
address of nat and rdr rules and in the routing options of filter rules,
but only for round-robin pools.
Tables can be defined with any of the following pfctl(8) mechanisms. As
with macros, reserved words may not be used as table names.
manually Persistent tables can be manually created with the add or
replace option of pfctl(8), before or after the ruleset has
been loaded.
pf.conf Table definitions can be placed directly in this file, and
loaded at the same time as other rules are loaded, atomically.
Table definitions inside pf.conf use the table statement, and
are especially useful to define non-persistent tables. The
contents of a pre-existing table defined without a list of
addresses to initialize it is not altered when pf.conf is
loaded. A table initialized with the empty list, { }, will be
cleared on load.
Tables may be defined with the following attributes:
persist The persist flag forces the kernel to keep the table even when
no rules refer to it. If the flag is not set, the kernel will
automatically remove the table when the last rule referring to
it is flushed.
const The const flag prevents the user from altering the contents of
the table once it has been created. Without that flag, pfctl(8)
can be used to add or remove addresses from the table at any
time, even when running with securelevel(7) = 2.
counters
The counters flag enables per-address packet and byte counters
which can be displayed with pfctl(8).
For example,
table <private> const { 10/8, 172.16/12, 192.168/16 }
table <badhosts> persist
block on fxp0 from { <private>, <badhosts> } to any
creates a table called private, to hold RFC 1918 private network blocks,
and a table called badhosts, which is initially empty. A filter rule is
set up to block all traffic coming from addresses listed in either table.
The private table cannot have its contents changed and the badhosts table
will exist even when no active filter rules reference it. Addresses may
later be added to the badhosts table, so that traffic from these hosts
can be blocked by using
# pfctl -t badhosts -Tadd 204.92.77.111
A table can also be initialized with an address list specified in one or
more external files, using the following syntax:
table <spam> persist file "/etc/spammers" file "/etc/openrelays"
block on fxp0 from <spam> to any
The files /etc/spammers and /etc/openrelays list IP addresses, one per
line. Any lines beginning with a # are treated as comments and ignored.
In addition to being specified by IP address, hosts may also be specified
by their hostname. When the resolver is called to add a hostname to a
table, all resulting IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are placed into the table.
IP addresses can also be entered in a table by specifying a valid inter-
face name, a valid interface group or the self keyword, in which case all
addresses assigned to the interface(s) will be added to the table.
OPTIONSpf(4) may be tuned for various situations using the set command.
settimeoutinterval Interval between purging expired states and fragments.
frag Seconds before an unassembled fragment is expired.
src.track Length of time to retain a source tracking entry after
the last state expires.
When a packet matches a stateful connection, the seconds to live
for the connection will be updated to that of the proto.modifier
which corresponds to the connection state. Each packet which
matches this state will reset the TTL. Tuning these values may
improve the performance of the firewall at the risk of dropping
valid idle connections.
tcp.first
The state after the first packet.
tcp.opening
The state before the destination host ever sends a packet.
tcp.established
The fully established state.
tcp.closing
The state after the first FIN has been sent.
tcp.finwait
The state after both FINs have been exchanged and the connec-
tion is closed. Some hosts (notably web servers on Solaris)
send TCP packets even after closing the connection. Increas-
ing tcp.finwait (and possibly tcp.closing) can prevent block-
ing of such packets.
tcp.closed
The state after one endpoint sends an RST.
ICMP and UDP are handled in a fashion similar to TCP, but with a
much more limited set of states:
udp.first
The state after the first packet.
udp.single
The state if the source host sends more than one packet but
the destination host has never sent one back.
udp.multiple
The state if both hosts have sent packets.
icmp.first
The state after the first packet.
icmp.error
The state after an ICMP error came back in response to an
ICMP packet.
Other protocols are handled similarly to UDP:
other.firstother.singleother.multiple
Timeout values can be reduced adaptively as the number of state ta-
ble entries grows.
adaptive.start
When the number of state entries exceeds this value, adaptive
scaling begins. All timeout values are scaled linearly with
factor (adaptive.end - number of states) / (adaptive.end -
adaptive.start).
adaptive.end
When reaching this number of state entries, all timeout val-
ues become zero, effectively purging all state entries imme-
diately. This value is used to define the scale factor, it
should not actually be reached (set a lower state limit, see
below).
Adaptive timeouts are enabled by default, with an adaptive.start
value equal to 60% of the state limit, and an adaptive.end value
equal to 120% of the state limit. They can be disabled by setting
both adaptive.start and adaptive.end to 0.
The adaptive timeout values can be defined both globally and for
each rule. When used on a per-rule basis, the values relate to the
number of states created by the rule, otherwise to the total number
of states.
For example:
set timeout tcp.first 120
set timeout tcp.established 86400
set timeout { adaptive.start 6000, adaptive.end 12000 }
set limit states 10000
With 9000 state table entries, the timeout values are scaled to 50%
(tcp.first 60, tcp.established 43200).
setloginterface
Enable collection of packet and byte count statistics for the given
interface or interface group. These statistics can be viewed using
# pfctl -s info
In this example pf(4) collects statistics on the interface named
dc0:
set loginterface dc0
One can disable the loginterface using:
set loginterface none
setlimit
Sets hard limits on the memory pools used by the packet filter.
See zone(9) for an explanation of memory pools.
For example,
set limit states 20000
sets the maximum number of entries in the memory pool used by state
table entries (generated by pass rules which do not specify nostate) to 20000. Using
set limit frags 20000
sets the maximum number of entries in the memory pool used for
fragment reassembly (generated by scrub rules) to 20000. Using
set limit src-nodes 2000
sets the maximum number of entries in the memory pool used for
tracking source IP addresses (generated by the sticky-address and
src.track options) to 2000. Using
set limit tables 1000
set limit table-entries 100000
sets limits on the memory pools used by tables. The first limits
the number of tables that can exist to 1000. The second limits the
overall number of addresses that can be stored in tables to 100000.
Various limits can be combined on a single line:
set limit { states 20000, frags 20000, src-nodes 2000 }
setruleset-optimizationnone Disable the ruleset optimizer.
basic Enable basic ruleset optimization. This is the default
behaviour. Basic ruleset optimization does four things
to improve the performance of ruleset evaluations:
1. remove duplicate rules
2. remove rules that are a subset of another rule
3. combine multiple rules into a table when advanta-
geous
4. re-order the rules to improve evaluation performance
profile Uses the currently loaded ruleset as a feedback profile
to tailor the ordering of quick rules to actual network
traffic.
It is important to note that the ruleset optimizer will modify the
ruleset to improve performance. A side effect of the ruleset modi-
fication is that per-rule accounting statistics will have different
meanings than before. If per-rule accounting is important for
billing purposes or whatnot, either the ruleset optimizer should
not be used or a label field should be added to all of the account-
ing rules to act as optimization barriers.
Optimization can also be set as a command-line argument to
pfctl(8), overriding the settings in pf.conf.
setoptimization
Optimize state timeouts for one of the following network environ-
ments:
normal
A normal network environment. Suitable for almost all net-
works.
high-latency
A high-latency environment (such as a satellite connection).
satellite
Alias for high-latency.
aggressive
Aggressively expire connections. This can greatly reduce the
memory usage of the firewall at the cost of dropping idle
connections early.
conservative
Extremely conservative settings. Avoid dropping legitimate
connections at the expense of greater memory utilization
(possibly much greater on a busy network) and slightly
increased processor utilization.
For example:
set optimization aggressive
setblock-policy
The block-policy option sets the default behaviour for the packet
block action:
drop Packet is silently dropped.
return A TCP RST is returned for blocked TCP packets, an ICMP
UNREACHABLE is returned for blocked UDP packets, and all
other packets are silently dropped.
For example:
set block-policy return
setstate-policy
The state-policy option sets the default behaviour for states:
if-bound States are bound to interface.
floating States can match packets on any interfaces (the
default).
For example:
set state-policy if-bound
setstate-defaults
The state-defaults option sets the state options for states created
from rules without an explicit keepstate. For example:
set state-defaults pflow, no-sync
sethostid
The 32-bit hostid identifies this firewall's state table entries to
other firewalls in a pfsync(4) failover cluster. By default the
hostid is set to a pseudo-random value, however it may be desirable
to manually configure it, for example to more easily identify the
source of state table entries.
set hostid 1
The hostid may be specified in either decimal or hexadecimal.
setrequire-order
By default pfctl(8) enforces an ordering of the statement types in
the ruleset to: options, normalization, queueing, translation,
filtering. Setting this option to no disables this enforcement.
There may be non-trivial and non-obvious implications to an out of
order ruleset. Consider carefully before disabling the order
enforcement.
setfingerprints
Load fingerprints of known operating systems from the given file-
name. By default fingerprints of known operating systems are auto-
matically loaded from pf.os(5) in /etc but can be overridden via
this option. Setting this option may leave a small period of time
where the fingerprints referenced by the currently active ruleset
are inconsistent until the new ruleset finishes loading.
For example:
set fingerprints "/etc/pf.os.devel"
setskipon <ifspec>
List interfaces for which packets should not be filtered. Packets
passing in or out on such interfaces are passed as if pf was dis-
abled, i.e. pf does not process them in any way. This can be use-
ful on loopback and other virtual interfaces, when packet filtering
is not desired and can have unexpected effects. For example:
set skip on lo0
setdebug
Set the debug level to one of the following:
none Don't generate debug messages.
urgent Generate debug messages only for serious errors.
misc Generate debug messages for various errors.
loud Generate debug messages for common conditions.
TRAFFIC NORMALIZATION
Traffic normalization is used to sanitize packet content in such a way
that there are no ambiguities in packet interpretation on the receiving
side. The normalizer does IP fragment reassembly to prevent attacks that
confuse intrusion detection systems by sending overlapping IP fragments.
Packet normalization is invoked with the scrub directive.
scrub has the following options:
no-df
Clears the dont-fragment bit from a matching IP packet. Some oper-
ating systems are known to generate fragmented packets with the
dont-fragment bit set. This is particularly true with NFS. Scrub
will drop such fragmented dont-fragment packets unless no-df is
specified.
Unfortunately some operating systems also generate their
dont-fragment packets with a zero IP identification field. Clear-
ing the dont-fragment bit on packets with a zero IP ID may cause
deleterious results if an upstream router later fragments the
packet. Using the random-id modifier (see below) is recommended in
combination with the no-df modifier to ensure unique IP identi-
fiers.
min-ttl <number>
Enforces a minimum TTL for matching IP packets.
max-mss <number>
Enforces a maximum MSS for matching TCP packets.
set-tos <string> | <number>
Enforces a TOS for matching IP packets. TOS may be given as one of
lowdelay, throughput, reliability, or as either hex or decimal.
random-id
Replaces the IP identification field with random values to compen-
sate for predictable values generated by many hosts. This option
only applies to packets that are not fragmented after the optional
fragment reassembly.
fragmentreassemble
Using scrub rules, fragments can be reassembled by normalization.
In this case, fragments are buffered until they form a complete
packet, and only the completed packet is passed on to the filter.
The advantage is that filter rules have to deal only with complete
packets, and can ignore fragments. The drawback of caching frag-
ments is the additional memory cost. But the full reassembly
method is the only method that currently works with NAT. This is
the default behavior of a scrub rule if no fragmentation modifier
is supplied.
fragmentcrop
The default fragment reassembly method is expensive, hence the
option to crop is provided. In this case, pf(4) will track the
fragments and cache a small range descriptor. Duplicate fragments
are dropped and overlaps are cropped. Thus data will only occur
once on the wire with ambiguities resolving to the first occur-
rence. Unlike the fragmentreassemble modifier, fragments are not
buffered, they are passed as soon as they are received. The
fragmentcrop reassembly mechanism does not yet work with NAT.
fragmentdrop-ovl
This option is similar to the fragmentcrop modifier except that
all overlapping or duplicate fragments will be dropped, and all
further corresponding fragments will be dropped as well.
reassembletcp
Statefully normalizes TCP connections. scrubreassembletcp rules
may not have the direction (in/out) specified. reassembletcp per-
forms the following normalizations:
ttl Neither side of the connection is allowed to reduce their
IP TTL. An attacker may send a packet such that it
reaches the firewall, affects the firewall state, and
expires before reaching the destination host. reassembletcp will raise the TTL of all packets back up to the high-
est value seen on the connection.
timestamp modulation
Modern TCP stacks will send a timestamp on every TCP
packet and echo the other endpoint's timestamp back to
them. Many operating systems will merely start the time-
stamp at zero when first booted, and increment it several
times a second. The uptime of the host can be deduced by
reading the timestamp and multiplying by a constant. Also
observing several different timestamps can be used to
count hosts behind a NAT device. And spoofing TCP packets
into a connection requires knowing or guessing valid time-
stamps. Timestamps merely need to be monotonically
increasing and not derived off a guessable base time.
reassembletcp will cause scrub to modulate the TCP time-
stamps with a random number.
extended PAWS checks
There is a problem with TCP on long fat pipes, in that a
packet might get delayed for longer than it takes the con-
nection to wrap its 32-bit sequence space. In such an
occurrence, the old packet would be indistinguishable from
a new packet and would be accepted as such. The solution
to this is called PAWS: Protection Against Wrapped
Sequence numbers. It protects against it by making sure
the timestamp on each packet does not go backwards.
reassembletcp also makes sure the timestamp on the packet
does not go forward more than the RFC allows. By doing
this, pf(4) artificially extends the security of TCP
sequence numbers by 10 to 18 bits when the host uses
appropriately randomized timestamps, since a blind
attacker would have to guess the timestamp as well.
For example,
scrub in on $ext_if all fragment reassemble
The no option prefixed to a scrub rule causes matching packets to remain
unscrubbed, much in the same way as dropquick works in the packet filter
(see below). This mechanism should be used when it is necessary to
exclude specific packets from broader scrub rules.
QUEUEING
The ALTQ system is currently not available in the GENERIC kernel nor as
loadable modules. In order to use the herein after called queueing
options one has to use a custom built kernel. Please refer to altq(4) to
learn about the related kernel options.
Packets can be assigned to queues for the purpose of bandwidth control.
At least two declarations are required to configure queues, and later any
packet filtering rule can reference the defined queues by name. During
the filtering component of pf.conf, the last referenced queue name is
where any packets from pass rules will be queued, while for block rules
it specifies where any resulting ICMP or TCP RST packets should be
queued. The scheduler defines the algorithm used to decide which packets
get delayed, dropped, or sent out immediately. There are three
schedulers currently supported.
cbq Class Based Queueing. Queues attached to an interface build a
tree, thus each queue can have further child queues. Each queue
can have a priority and a bandwidth assigned. Priority mainly con-
trols the time packets take to get sent out, while bandwidth has
primarily effects on throughput. cbq achieves both partitioning
and sharing of link bandwidth by hierarchically structured classes.
Each class has its own queue and is assigned its share of
bandwidth. A child class can borrow bandwidth from its parent
class as long as excess bandwidth is available (see the option
borrow, below).
priq Priority Queueing. Queues are flat attached to the interface,
thus, queues cannot have further child queues. Each queue has a
unique priority assigned, ranging from 0 to 15. Packets in the
queue with the highest priority are processed first.
hfsc Hierarchical Fair Service Curve. Queues attached to an interface
build a tree, thus each queue can have further child queues. Each
queue can have a priority and a bandwidth assigned. Priority
mainly controls the time packets take to get sent out, while
bandwidth primarily affects throughput. hfsc supports both link-
sharing and guaranteed real-time services. It employs a service
curve based QoS model, and its unique feature is an ability to
decouple delay and bandwidth allocation.
The interfaces on which queueing should be activated are declared using
the altqon declaration. altqon has the following keywords:
<interface>
Queueing is enabled on the named interface.
<scheduler>
Specifies which queueing scheduler to use. Currently supported
values are cbq for Class Based Queueing, priq for Priority Queueing
and hfsc for the Hierarchical Fair Service Curve scheduler.
bandwidth <bw>
The maximum bitrate for all queues on an interface may be specified
using the bandwidth keyword. The value can be specified as an
absolute value or as a percentage of the interface bandwidth. When
using an absolute value, the suffixes b, Kb, Mb, and Gb are used to
represent bits, kilobits, megabits, and gigabits per second,
respectively. The value must not exceed the interface bandwidth.
If bandwidth is not specified, the interface bandwidth is used (but
take note that some interfaces do not know their bandwidth, or can
adapt their bandwidth rates).
qlimit <limit>
The maximum number of packets held in the queue. The default is
50.
tbrsize <size>
Adjusts the size, in bytes, of the token bucket regulator. If not
specified, heuristics based on the interface bandwidth are used to
determine the size.
queue <list>
Defines a list of subqueues to create on an interface.
In the following example, the interface dc0 should queue up to 5Mbps in
four second-level queues using Class Based Queueing. Those four queues
will be shown in a later example.
altq on dc0 cbq bandwidth 5Mb queue { std, http, mail, ssh }
Once interfaces are activated for queueing using the altq directive, a
sequence of queue directives may be defined. The name associated with a
queue must match a queue defined in the altq directive (e.g. mail), or,
except for the priqscheduler, in a parent queue declaration. The fol-
lowing keywords can be used:
on <interface>
Specifies the interface the queue operates on. If not given, it
operates on all matching interfaces.
bandwidth <bw>
Specifies the maximum bitrate to be processed by the queue. This
value must not exceed the value of the parent queue and can be
specified as an absolute value or a percentage of the parent
queue's bandwidth. If not specified, defaults to 100% of the par-
ent queue's bandwidth. The priq scheduler does not support band-
width specification.
priority <level>
Between queues a priority level can be set. For cbq and hfsc, the
range is 0 to 7 and for priq, the range is 0 to 15. The default
for all is 1. Priq queues with a higher priority are always served
first. Cbq and Hfsc queues with a higher priority are preferred in
the case of overload.
qlimit <limit>
The maximum number of packets held in the queue. The default is
50.
The scheduler can get additional parameters with <scheduler>
(<parameters>). Parameters are as follows:
default Packets not matched by another queue are assigned to this
one. Exactly one default queue is required.
red Enable RED (Random Early Detection) on this queue. RED drops
packets with a probability proportional to the average queue
length.
rio Enables RIO on this queue. RIO is RED with IN/OUT, thus run-
ning RED two times more than RIO would achieve the same
effect. RIO is currently not supported in the GENERIC ker-
nel.
ecn Enables ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) on this queue.
ECN implies RED.
The cbqscheduler supports an additional option:
borrow The queue can borrow bandwidth from the parent.
The hfscscheduler supports some additional options:
realtime <sc>
The minimum required bandwidth for the queue.
upperlimit <sc>
The maximum allowed bandwidth for the queue.
linkshare <sc>
The bandwidth share of a backlogged queue.
<sc> is an acronym for servicecurve.
The format for service curve specifications is (m1, d, m2). m2 controls
the bandwidth assigned to the queue. m1 and d are optional and can be
used to control the initial bandwidth assignment. For the first d mil-
liseconds the queue gets the bandwidth given as m1, afterwards the value
given in m2.
Furthermore, with cbq and hfsc, child queues can be specified as in an
altq declaration, thus building a tree of queues using a part of their
parent's bandwidth.
Packets can be assigned to queues based on filter rules by using the
queue keyword. Normally only one queue is specified; when a second one
is specified it will instead be used for packets which have a TOS of
lowdelay and for TCP ACKs with no data payload.
To continue the previous example, the examples below would specify the
four referenced queues, plus a few child queues. Interactive ssh(1) ses-
sions get priority over bulk transfers like scp(1) and sftp(1). The
queues may then be referenced by filtering rules (see PACKETFILTERING
below).
queue std bandwidth 10% cbq(default)
queue http bandwidth 60% priority 2 cbq(borrow red) \
{ employees, developers }
queue developers bandwidth 75% cbq(borrow)
queue employees bandwidth 15%
queue mail bandwidth 10% priority 0 cbq(borrow ecn)
queue ssh bandwidth 20% cbq(borrow) { ssh_interactive, ssh_bulk }
queue ssh_interactive bandwidth 50% priority 7 cbq(borrow)
queue ssh_bulk bandwidth 50% priority 0 cbq(borrow)
block return out on dc0 inet all queue std
pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from $developerhosts to any port 80 \
queue developers
pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from $employeehosts to any port 80 \
queue employees
pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 22 \
queue(ssh_bulk, ssh_interactive)
pass out on dc0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 25 \
queue mail
TRANSLATION
Translation rules modify either the source or destination address of the
packets associated with a stateful connection. A stateful connection is
automatically created to track packets matching such a rule as long as
they are not blocked by the filtering section of pf.conf. The transla-
tion engine modifies the specified address and/or port in the packet,
recalculates IP, TCP and UDP checksums as necessary, and passes it to the
packet filter for evaluation.
Since translation occurs before filtering the filter engine will see
packets as they look after any addresses and ports have been translated.
Filter rules will therefore have to filter based on the translated
address and port number. Packets that match a translation rule are only
automatically passed if the pass modifier is given, otherwise they are
still subject to block and pass rules.
The state entry created permits pf(4) to keep track of the original
address for traffic associated with that state and correctly direct
return traffic for that connection.
Various types of translation are possible with pf:
binat
A binat rule specifies a bidirectional mapping between an external
IP netblock and an internal IP netblock.
nat A nat rule specifies that IP addresses are to be changed as the
packet traverses the given interface. This technique allows one or
more IP addresses on the translating host to support network traf-
fic for a larger range of machines on an "inside" network.
Although in theory any IP address can be used on the inside, it is
strongly recommended that one of the address ranges defined by RFC
1918 be used. These netblocks are:
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (all of net 10, i.e., 10/8)
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (i.e., 172.16/12)
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (i.e., 192.168/16)
rdr The packet is redirected to another destination and possibly a dif-
ferent port. rdr rules can optionally specify port ranges instead
of single ports. rdr ... port 2000:2999 -> ... port 4000 redirects
ports 2000 to 2999 (inclusive) to port 4000. rdr ... port
2000:2999 -> ... port 4000:* redirects port 2000 to 4000, 2001 to
4001, ..., 2999 to 4999.
In addition to modifying the address, some translation rules may modify
source or destination ports for tcp(4) or udp(4) connections; implicitly
in the case of nat rules and explicitly in the case of rdr rules. Port
numbers are never translated with a binat rule.
Evaluation order of the translation rules is dependent on the type of the
translation rules and of the direction of a packet. binat rules are
always evaluated first. Then either the rdr rules are evaluated on an
inbound packet or the nat rules on an outbound packet. Rules of the same
type are evaluated in the same order in which they appear in the ruleset.
The first matching rule decides what action is taken.
The no option prefixed to a translation rule causes packets to remain
untranslated, much in the same way as dropquick works in the packet fil-
ter (see below). If no rule matches the packet it is passed to the fil-
ter engine unmodified.
Translation rules apply only to packets that pass through the specified
interface, and if no interface is specified, translation is applied to
packets on all interfaces. For instance, redirecting port 80 on an
external interface to an internal web server will only work for connec-
tions originating from the outside. Connections to the address of the
external interface from local hosts will not be redirected, since such
packets do not actually pass through the external interface. Redirec-
tions cannot reflect packets back through the interface they arrive on,
they can only be redirected to hosts connected to different interfaces or
to the firewall itself.
Note that redirecting external incoming connections to the loopback
address, as in
rdr on ne3 inet proto tcp to port smtp -> 127.0.0.1 port spamd
will effectively allow an external host to connect to daemons bound
solely to the loopback address, circumventing the traditional blocking of
such connections on a real interface. Unless this effect is desired, any
of the local non-loopback addresses should be used as redirection target
instead, which allows external connections only to daemons bound to this
address or not bound to any address.
See TRANSLATIONEXAMPLES below.
PACKET FILTERINGpf(4) has the ability to block and pass packets based on attributes of
their layer 3 (see ip(4) and ip6(4)) and layer 4 (see icmp(4), icmp6(4),
tcp(4), udp(4)) headers. In addition, packets may also be assigned to
queues for the purpose of bandwidth control.
For each packet processed by the packet filter, the filter rules are
evaluated in sequential order, from first to last. The last matching
rule decides what action is taken. If no rule matches the packet, the
default action is to pass the packet.
The following actions can be used in the filter:
block
The packet is blocked. There are a number of ways in which a block
rule can behave when blocking a packet. The default behaviour is
to drop packets silently, however this can be overridden or made
explicit either globally, by setting the block-policy option, or on
a per-rule basis with one of the following options:
drop The packet is silently dropped.
return-rst
This applies only to tcp(4) packets, and issues a TCP RST
which closes the connection.
return-icmpreturn-icmp6
This causes ICMP messages to be returned for packets which
match the rule. By default this is an ICMP UNREACHABLE mes-
sage, however this can be overridden by specifying a message
as a code or number.
return
This causes a TCP RST to be returned for tcp(4) packets and
an ICMP UNREACHABLE for UDP and other packets.
Options returning ICMP packets currently have no effect if pf(4)
operates on a if_bridge(4), as the code to support this feature has
not yet been implemented.
The simplest mechanism to block everything by default and only pass
packets that match explicit rules is specify a first filter rule
of:
block all
pass The packet is passed; state is created unless the nostate option
is specified.
By default pf(4) filters packets statefully; the first time a packet
matches a pass rule, a state entry is created; for subsequent packets the
filter checks whether the packet matches any state. If it does, the
packet is passed without evaluation of any rules. After the connection
is closed or times out, the state entry is automatically removed.
This has several advantages. For TCP connections, comparing a packet to
a state involves checking its sequence numbers, as well as TCP timestamps
if a scrubreassembletcp rule applies to the connection. If these val-
ues are outside the narrow windows of expected values, the packet is
dropped. This prevents spoofing attacks, such as when an attacker sends
packets with a fake source address/port but does not know the connec-
tion's sequence numbers. Similarly, pf(4) knows how to match ICMP
replies to states. For example,
pass out inet proto icmp all icmp-type echoreq
allows echo requests (such as those created by ping(8)) out statefully,
and matches incoming echo replies correctly to states.
Also, looking up states is usually faster than evaluating rules. If
there are 50 rules, all of them are evaluated sequentially in O(n). Even
with 50000 states, only 16 comparisons are needed to match a state, since
states are stored in a binary search tree that allows searches in O(log2
n).
Furthermore, correct handling of ICMP error messages is critical to many
protocols, particularly TCP. pf(4) matches ICMP error messages to the
correct connection, checks them against connection parameters, and passes
them if appropriate. For example if an ICMP source quench message refer-
ring to a stateful TCP connection arrives, it will be matched to the
state and get passed.
Finally, state tracking is required for nat, binat and rdr rules, in
order to track address and port translations and reverse the translation
on returning packets.
pf(4) will also create state for other protocols which are effectively
stateless by nature. UDP packets are matched to states using only host
addresses and ports, and other protocols are matched to states using only
the host addresses.
If stateless filtering of individual packets is desired, the nostate
keyword can be used to specify that state will not be created if this is
the last matching rule. A number of parameters can also be set to affect
how pf(4) handles state tracking. See STATEFULTRACKINGOPTIONS below
for further details.
PARAMETERS
The rule parameters specify the packets to which a rule applies. A
packet always comes in on, or goes out through, one interface. Most
parameters are optional. If a parameter is specified, the rule only
applies to packets with matching attributes. Certain parameters can be
expressed as lists, in which case pfctl(8) generates all needed rule com-
binations.
in or out
This rule applies to incoming or outgoing packets. If neither in
nor out are specified, the rule will match packets in both direc-
tions.
log In addition to the action specified, a log message is generated.
Only the packet that establishes the state is logged, unless the nostate option is specified. The logged packets are sent to a
pflog(4) interface, by default pflog0. This interface is monitored
by the pflogd(8) logging daemon, which dumps the logged packets to
the file /var/log/pflog in pcap(3) binary format.
log(all)
Used to force logging of all packets for a connection. This is not
necessary when nostate is explicitly specified. As with log,
packets are logged to pflog(4).
log(user)
Logs the UNIX user ID of the user that owns the socket and the PID
of the process that has the socket open where the packet is sourced
from or destined to (depending on which socket is local). This is
in addition to the normal information logged.
Due to the problems described in the BUGS section only the first
packet logged via log(all,user) will have the user credentials
logged when using stateful matching.
log(to <interface>)
Send logs to the specified pflog(4) interface instead of pflog0.
quick
If a packet matches a rule which has the quick option set, this
rule is considered the last matching rule, and evaluation of subse-
quent rules is skipped.
on <interface>
This rule applies only to packets coming in on, or going out
through, this particular interface or interface group. For more
information on interface groups, see the group keyword in
ifconfig(8).
<af> This rule applies only to packets of this address family. Sup-
ported values are inet and inet6.
proto <protocol>
This rule applies only to packets of this protocol. Common proto-
cols are icmp(4), icmp6(4), tcp(4), and udp(4). For a list of all
the protocol name to number mappings used by pfctl(8), see the file
/etc/protocols.
from <source> port <source> os <source> to <dest> port <dest>
This rule applies only to packets with the specified source and
destination addresses and ports.
Addresses can be specified in CIDR notation (matching netblocks),
as symbolic host names, interface names or interface group names,
or as any of the following keywords:
any Any address.
route <label> Any address whose associated route has label
<label>. See route(4) and route(8).
no-route Any address which is not currently routable.
urpf-failed Any source address that fails a unicast reverse
path forwarding (URPF) check, i.e. packets coming
in on an interface other than that which holds the
route back to the packet's source address.
<table> Any address that matches the given table.
Ranges of addresses are specified by using the `-' operator. For
instance: ``10.1.1.10 - 10.1.1.12'' means all addresses from
10.1.1.10 to 10.1.1.12, hence addresses 10.1.1.10, 10.1.1.11, and
10.1.1.12.
Interface names and interface group names can have modifiers
appended:
:network Translates to the network(s) attached to the inter-
face.
:broadcast Translates to the interface's broadcast address(es).
:peer Translates to the point-to-point interface's peer
address(es).
:0 Do not include interface aliases.
Host names may also have the :0 option appended to restrict the
name resolution to the first of each v4 and v6 address found.
Host name resolution and interface to address translation are done
at ruleset load-time. When the address of an interface (or host
name) changes (under DHCP or PPP, for instance), the ruleset must
be reloaded for the change to be reflected in the kernel. Sur-
rounding the interface name (and optional modifiers) in parentheses
changes this behaviour. When the interface name is surrounded by
parentheses, the rule is automatically updated whenever the inter-
face changes its address. The ruleset does not need to be
reloaded. This is especially useful with nat.
Ports can be specified either by number or by name. For example,
port 80 can be specified as www. For a list of all port name to
number mappings used by pfctl(8), see the file /etc/services.
Ports and ranges of ports are specified by using these operators:
= (equal)
!= (unequal)
< (less than)
<= (less than or equal)
> (greater than)
>= (greater than or equal)
: (range including boundaries)
>< (range excluding boundaries)
<> (except range)
`><', `<>' and `:' are binary operators (they take two arguments).
For instance:
port2000:2004
means `all ports >= 2000 and <= 2004', hence ports
2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.
port2000 __ 2004
means `all ports > 2000 and < 2004', hence ports 2001,
2002 and 2003.
port2000 __ 2004
means `all ports < 2000 or > 2004', hence ports 1-1999
and 2005-65535.
The operating system of the source host can be specified in the
case of TCP rules with the OS modifier. See the OPERATINGSYSTEMFINGERPRINTING section for more information.
The host, port and OS specifications are optional, as in the fol-
lowing examples:
pass in all
pass in from any to any
pass in proto tcp from any port <= 1024 to any
pass in proto tcp from any to any port 25
pass in proto tcp from 10.0.0.0/8 port > 1024 \
to ! 10.1.2.3 port != ssh
pass in proto tcp from any os "OpenBSD"
pass in proto tcp from route "DTAG"
all This is equivalent to "from any to any".
group <group>
Similar to user, this rule only applies to packets of sockets owned
by the specified group.
user <user>
This rule only applies to packets of sockets owned by the specified
user. For outgoing connections initiated from the firewall, this
is the user that opened the connection. For incoming connections
to the firewall itself, this is the user that listens on the desti-
nation port. For forwarded connections, where the firewall is not
a connection endpoint, the user and group are unknown.
All packets, both outgoing and incoming, of one connection are
associated with the same user and group. Only TCP and UDP packets
can be associated with users; for other protocols these parameters
are ignored.
User and group refer to the effective (as opposed to the real) IDs,
in case the socket is created by a setuid/setgid process. User and
group IDs are stored when a socket is created; when a process cre-
ates a listening socket as root (for instance, by binding to a
privileged port) and subsequently changes to another user ID (to
drop privileges), the credentials will remain root.
User and group IDs can be specified as either numbers or names.
The syntax is similar to the one for ports. The value unknown
matches packets of forwarded connections. unknown can only be used
with the operators = and !=. Other constructs like user >=unknown
are invalid. Forwarded packets with unknown user and group ID
match only rules that explicitly compare against unknown with the
operators = or !=. For instance user >=0 does not match forwarded
packets. The following example allows only selected users to open
outgoing connections:
block out proto { tcp, udp } all
pass out proto { tcp, udp } all user { < 1000, dhartmei }
flags <a> /<b> | /<b> | any
This rule only applies to TCP packets that have the flags <a> set
out of set <b>. Flags not specified in <b> are ignored. For
stateful connections, the default is flagsS/SA. To indicate that
flags should not be checked at all, specify flagsany. The flags
are: (F)IN, (S)YN, (R)ST, (P)USH, (A)CK, (U)RG, (E)CE, and C(W)R.
flagsS/S Flag SYN is set. The other flags are ignored.
flagsS/SA This is the default setting for stateful connections.
Out of SYN and ACK, exactly SYN may be set. SYN,
SYN+PSH and SYN+RST match, but SYN+ACK, ACK and ACK+RST
do not. This is more restrictive than the previous
example.
flags/SFRA
If the first set is not specified, it defaults to none.
All of SYN, FIN, RST and ACK must be unset.
Because flagsS/SA is applied by default (unless nostate is speci-
fied), only the initial SYN packet of a TCP handshake will create a
state for a TCP connection. It is possible to be less restrictive,
and allow state creation from intermediate (non-SYN) packets, by
specifying flagsany. This will cause pf(4) to synchronize to
existing connections, for instance if one flushes the state table.
However, states created from such intermediate packets may be miss-
ing connection details such as the TCP window scaling factor.
States which modify the packet flow, such as those affected by nat,
binat or rdr rules, modulate or synproxystate options, or scrubbed
with reassembletcp will also not be recoverable from intermediate
packets. Such connections will stall and time out.
icmp-type <type> code <code>
icmp6-type <type> code <code>
This rule only applies to ICMP or ICMPv6 packets with the specified
type and code. Text names for ICMP types and codes are listed in
icmp(4) and icmp6(4). This parameter is only valid for rules that
cover protocols ICMP or ICMP6. The protocol and the ICMP type
indicator (icmp-type or icmp6-type) must match.
tos <string> | <number>
This rule applies to packets with the specified TOS bits set. TOS
may be given as one of lowdelay, throughput, reliability, or as
either hex or decimal.
For example, the following rules are identical:
pass all tos lowdelay
pass all tos 0x10
pass all tos 16
allow-opts
By default, IPv4 packets with IP options or IPv6 packets with rout-
ing extension headers are blocked. When allow-opts is specified
for a pass rule, packets that pass the filter based on that rule
(last matching) do so even if they contain IP options or routing
extension headers. For packets that match state, the rule that
initially created the state is used. The implicit pass rule that
is used when a packet does not match any rules does not allow IP
options.
label <string>
Adds a label (name) to the rule, which can be used to identify the
rule. For instance, pfctl -s labels shows per-rule statistics for
rules that have labels.
The following macros can be used in labels:
$if The interface.
$srcaddr The source IP address.
$dstaddr The destination IP address.
$srcport The source port specification.
$dstport The destination port specification.
$proto The protocol name.
$nr The rule number.
For example:
ips = "{ 1.2.3.4, 1.2.3.5 }"
pass in proto tcp from any to $ips \
port > 1023 label "$dstaddr:$dstport"
expands to
pass in inet proto tcp from any to 1.2.3.4 \
port > 1023 label "1.2.3.4:>1023"
pass in inet proto tcp from any to 1.2.3.5 \
port > 1023 label "1.2.3.5:>1023"
The macro expansion for the label directive occurs only at configu-
ration file parse time, not during runtime.
queue <queue> | (<queue>, <queue>)
Packets matching this rule will be assigned to the specified queue.
If two queues are given, packets which have a TOS of lowdelay and
TCP ACKs with no data payload will be assigned to the second one.
See QUEUEING for setup details.
For example:
pass in proto tcp to port 25 queue mail
pass in proto tcp to port 22 queue(ssh_bulk, ssh_prio)
tag <string>
Packets matching this rule will be tagged with the specified
string. The tag acts as an internal marker that can be used to
identify these packets later on. This can be used, for example, to
provide trust between interfaces and to determine if packets have
been processed by translation rules. Tags are "sticky", meaning
that the packet will be tagged even if the rule is not the last
matching rule. Further matching rules can replace the tag with a
new one but will not remove a previously applied tag. A packet is
only ever assigned one tag at a time. Packet tagging can be done
during nat, rdr, or binat rules in addition to filter rules. Tags
take the same macros as labels (see above).
tagged <string>
Used with filter, translation or scrub rules to specify that pack-
ets must already be tagged with the given tag in order to match the
rule. Inverse tag matching can also be done by specifying the !
operator before the tagged keyword.
rtable <number>
Used to select an alternate routing table for the routing lookup.
Only effective before the route lookup happened, i.e. when filter-
ing inbound.
divert-to <host> port <port>
Used to redirect packets to a local socket bound to host and port.
The packets will not be modified, so getsockname(2) on the socket
will return the original destination address of the packet.
divert-reply
Used to receive replies for sockets that are bound to addresses
which are not local to the machine. See setsockopt(2) for informa-
tion on how to bind these sockets.
probability <number>
A probability attribute can be attached to a rule, with a value set
between 0 and 1, bounds not included. In that case, the rule will
be honoured using the given probability value only. For example,
the following rule will drop 20% of incoming ICMP packets:
block in proto icmp probability 20%
ROUTING
If a packet matches a rule with a route option set, the packet filter
will route the packet according to the type of route option. When such a
rule creates state, the route option is also applied to all packets
matching the same connection.
fastroute
The fastroute option does a normal route lookup to find the next
hop for the packet.
route-to
The route-to option routes the packet to the specified interface
with an optional address for the next hop. When a route-to rule
creates state, only packets that pass in the same direction as the
filter rule specifies will be routed in this way. Packets passing
in the opposite direction (replies) are not affected and are routed
normally.
reply-to
The reply-to option is similar to route-to, but routes packets that
pass in the opposite direction (replies) to the specified inter-
face. Opposite direction is only defined in the context of a state
entry, and reply-to is useful only in rules that create state. It
can be used on systems with multiple external connections to route
all outgoing packets of a connection through the interface the
incoming connection arrived through (symmetric routing enforce-
ment).
dup-to
The dup-to option creates a duplicate of the packet and routes it
like route-to. The original packet gets routed as it normally
would.
POOL OPTIONS
For nat and rdr rules, (as well as for the route-to, reply-to and dup-to
rule options) for which there is a single redirection address which has a
subnet mask smaller than 32 for IPv4 or 128 for IPv6 (more than one IP
address), a variety of different methods for assigning this address can
be used:
bitmask
The bitmask option applies the network portion of the redirection
address to the address to be modified (source with nat, destination
with rdr).
random
The random option selects an address at random within the defined
block of addresses.
source-hash
The source-hash option uses a hash of the source address to deter-
mine the redirection address, ensuring that the redirection address
is always the same for a given source. An optional key can be
specified after this keyword either in hex or as a string; by
default pfctl(8) randomly generates a key for source-hash every
time the ruleset is reloaded.
round-robin
The round-robin option loops through the redirection address(es).
When more than one redirection address is specified, round-robin is
the only permitted pool type.
static-port
With nat rules, the static-port option prevents pf(4) from modify-
ing the source port on TCP and UDP packets.
Additionally, the sticky-address option can be specified to help ensure
that multiple connections from the same source are mapped to the same re-
direction address. This option can be used with the random and
round-robin pool options. Note that by default these associations are
destroyed as soon as there are no longer states which refer to them; in
order to make the mappings last beyond the lifetime of the states,
increase the global options with settimeoutsrc.track. See STATEFULTRACKINGOPTIONS for more ways to control the source tracking.
STATE MODULATION
Much of the security derived from TCP is attributable to how well the
initial sequence numbers (ISNs) are chosen. Some popular stack implemen-
tations choose very poor ISNs and thus are normally susceptible to ISN
prediction exploits. By applying a modulatestate rule to a TCP connec-
tion, pf(4) will create a high quality random sequence number for each
connection endpoint.
The modulatestate directive implicitly keeps state on the rule and is
only applicable to TCP connections.
For instance:
block all
pass out proto tcp from any to any modulate state
pass in proto tcp from any to any port 25 flags S/SFRA modulate state
Note that modulated connections will not recover when the state table is
lost (firewall reboot, flushing the state table, etc...). pf(4) will not
be able to infer a connection again after the state table flushes the
connection's modulator. When the state is lost, the connection may be
left dangling until the respective endpoints time out the connection. It
is possible on a fast local network for the endpoints to start an ACK
storm while trying to resynchronize after the loss of the modulator. The
default flags settings (or a more strict equivalent) should be used on
modulatestate rules to prevent ACK storms.
Note that alternative methods are available to prevent loss of the state
table and allow for firewall failover. See carp(4) and pfsync(4) for
further information.
SYN PROXY
By default, pf(4) passes packets that are part of a tcp(4) handshake
between the endpoints. The synproxystate option can be used to cause
pf(4) itself to complete the handshake with the active endpoint, perform
a handshake with the passive endpoint, and then forward packets between
the endpoints.
No packets are sent to the passive endpoint before the active endpoint
has completed the handshake, hence so-called SYN floods with spoofed
source addresses will not reach the passive endpoint, as the sender can't
complete the handshake.
The proxy is transparent to both endpoints, they each see a single con-
nection from/to the other endpoint. pf(4) chooses random initial
sequence numbers for both handshakes. Once the handshakes are completed,
the sequence number modulators (see previous section) are used to trans-
late further packets of the connection. synproxystate includes modulatestate.
Rules with synproxy will not work if pf(4) operates on a bridge(4).
Example:
pass in proto tcp from any to any port www synproxy state
STATEFUL TRACKING OPTIONS
A number of options related to stateful tracking can be applied on a per-
rule basis. keepstate, modulatestate and synproxystate support these
options, and keepstate must be specified explicitly to apply options to
a rule.
max <number>
Limits the number of concurrent states the rule may create. When
this limit is reached, further packets that would create state will
not match this rule until existing states time out.
no-sync
Prevent state changes for states created by this rule from appear-
ing on the pfsync(4) interface.
<timeout> <seconds>
Changes the timeout values used for states created by this rule.
For a list of all valid timeout names, see OPTIONS above.
sloppy
Uses a sloppy TCP connection tracker that does not check sequence
numbers at all, which makes insertion and ICMP teardown attacks way
easier. This is intended to be used in situations where one does
not see all packets of a connection, e.g. in asymmetric routing
situations. Cannot be used with modulate or synproxy state.
pflow
States created by this rule are exported on the pflow(4) interface.
Multiple options can be specified, separated by commas:
pass in proto tcp from any to any \
port www keep state \
(max 100, source-track rule, max-src-nodes 75, \
max-src-states 3, tcp.established 60, tcp.closing 5)
When the source-track keyword is specified, the number of states per
source IP is tracked.
source-trackrule
The maximum number of states created by this rule is limited by the
rule's max-src-nodes and max-src-states options. Only state
entries created by this particular rule count toward the rule's
limits.
source-trackglobal
The number of states created by all rules that use this option is
limited. Each rule can specify different max-src-nodes and
max-src-states options, however state entries created by any par-
ticipating rule count towards each individual rule's limits.
The following limits can be set:
max-src-nodes <number>
Limits the maximum number of source addresses which can simultane-
ously have state table entries.
max-src-states <number>
Limits the maximum number of simultaneous state entries that a sin-
gle source address can create with this rule.
For stateful TCP connections, limits on established connections (connec-
tions which have completed the TCP 3-way handshake) can also be enforced
per source IP.
max-src-conn <number>
Limits the maximum number of simultaneous TCP connections which
have completed the 3-way handshake that a single host can make.
max-src-conn-rate <number> / <seconds>
Limit the rate of new connections over a time interval. The con-
nection rate is an approximation calculated as a moving average.
Because the 3-way handshake ensures that the source address is not being
spoofed, more aggressive action can be taken based on these limits. With
the overload <table> state option, source IP addresses which hit either
of the limits on established connections will be added to the named ta-
ble. This table can be used in the ruleset to block further activity
from the offending host, redirect it to a tarpit process, or restrict its
bandwidth.
The optional flush keyword kills all states created by the matching rule
which originate from the host which exceeds these limits. The global
modifier to the flush command kills all states originating from the
offending host, regardless of which rule created the state.
For example, the following rules will protect the webserver against hosts
making more than 100 connections in 10 seconds. Any host which connects
faster than this rate will have its address added to the <bad_hosts> ta-
ble and have all states originating from it flushed. Any new packets
arriving from this host will be dropped unconditionally by the block
rule.
block quick from <bad_hosts>
pass in on $ext_if proto tcp to $webserver port www keep state \
(max-src-conn-rate 100/10, overload <bad_hosts> flush global)
OPERATING SYSTEM FINGERPRINTING
Passive OS Fingerprinting is a mechanism to inspect nuances of a TCP con-
nection's initial SYN packet and guess at the host's operating system.
Unfortunately these nuances are easily spoofed by an attacker so the fin-
gerprint is not useful in making security decisions. But the fingerprint
is typically accurate enough to make policy decisions upon.
The fingerprints may be specified by operating system class, by version,
or by subtype/patchlevel. The class of an operating system is typically
the vendor or genre and would be OpenBSD for the pf(4) firewall itself.
The version of the oldest available OpenBSD release on the main FTP site
would be 2.6 and the fingerprint would be written
"OpenBSD 2.6"
The subtype of an operating system is typically used to describe the
patchlevel if that patch led to changes in the TCP stack behavior. In
the case of OpenBSD, the only subtype is for a fingerprint that was nor-
malized by the no-df scrub option and would be specified as
"OpenBSD 3.3 no-df"
Fingerprints for most popular operating systems are provided by pf.os(5).
Once pf(4) is running, a complete list of known operating system finger-
prints may be listed by running:
# pfctl -so
Filter rules can enforce policy at any level of operating system specifi-
cation assuming a fingerprint is present. Policy could limit traffic to
approved operating systems or even ban traffic from hosts that aren't at
the latest service pack.
The unknown class can also be used as the fingerprint which will match
packets for which no operating system fingerprint is known.
Examples:
pass out proto tcp from any os OpenBSD
block out proto tcp from any os Doors
block out proto tcp from any os "Doors PT"
block out proto tcp from any os "Doors PT SP3"
block out from any os "unknown"
pass on lo0 proto tcp from any os "OpenBSD 3.3 lo0"
Operating system fingerprinting is limited only to the TCP SYN packet.
This means that it will not work on other protocols and will not match a
currently established connection.
Caveat: operating system fingerprints are occasionally wrong. There are
three problems: an attacker can trivially craft his packets to appear as
any operating system he chooses; an operating system patch could change
the stack behavior and no fingerprints will match it until the database
is updated; and multiple operating systems may have the same fingerprint.
BLOCKING SPOOFED TRAFFIC
"Spoofing" is the faking of IP addresses, typically for malicious pur-
poses. The antispoof directive expands to a set of filter rules which
will block all traffic with a source IP from the network(s) directly con-
nected to the specified interface(s) from entering the system through any
other interface.
For example, the line
antispoof for lo0
expands to
block drop in on ! lo0 inet from 127.0.0.1/8 to any
block drop in on ! lo0 inet6 from ::1 to any
For non-loopback interfaces, there are additional rules to block incoming
packets with a source IP address identical to the interface's IP(s). For
example, assuming the interface wi0 had an IP address of 10.0.0.1 and a
netmask of 255.255.255.0, the line
antispoof for wi0 inet
expands to
block drop in on ! wi0 inet from 10.0.0.0/24 to any
block drop in inet from 10.0.0.1 to any
Caveat: Rules created by the antispoof directive interfere with packets
sent over loopback interfaces to local addresses. One should pass these
explicitly.
FRAGMENT HANDLING
The size of IP datagrams (packets) can be significantly larger than the
maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the network. In cases when it is nec-
essary or more efficient to send such large packets, the large packet
will be fragmented into many smaller packets that will each fit onto the
wire. Unfortunately for a firewalling device, only the first logical
fragment will contain the necessary header information for the subproto-
col that allows pf(4) to filter on things such as TCP ports or to perform
NAT.
Besides the use of scrub rules as described in TRAFFICNORMALIZATION
above, there are three options for handling fragments in the packet fil-
ter.
One alternative is to filter individual fragments with filter rules. If
no scrub rule applies to a fragment, it is passed to the filter. Filter
rules with matching IP header parameters decide whether the fragment is
passed or blocked, in the same way as complete packets are filtered.
Without reassembly, fragments can only be filtered based on IP header
fields (source/destination address, protocol), since subprotocol header
fields are not available (TCP/UDP port numbers, ICMP code/type). The
fragment option can be used to restrict filter rules to apply only to
fragments, but not complete packets. Filter rules without the fragment
option still apply to fragments, if they only specify IP header fields.
For instance, the rule
pass in proto tcp from any to any port 80
never applies to a fragment, even if the fragment is part of a TCP packet
with destination port 80, because without reassembly this information is
not available for each fragment. This also means that fragments cannot
create new or match existing state table entries, which makes stateful
filtering and address translation (NAT, redirection) for fragments impos-
sible.
It's also possible to reassemble only certain fragments by specifying
source or destination addresses or protocols as parameters in scrub
rules.
In most cases, the benefits of reassembly outweigh the additional memory
cost, and it's recommended to use scrub rules to reassemble all fragments
via the fragmentreassemble modifier.
The memory allocated for fragment caching can be limited using pfctl(8).
Once this limit is reached, fragments that would have to be cached are
dropped until other entries time out. The timeout value can also be
adjusted.
Currently, only IPv4 fragments are supported and IPv6 fragments are
blocked unconditionally.
ANCHORS
Besides the main ruleset, pfctl(8) can load rulesets into anchor attach-
ment points. An anchor is a container that can hold rules, address
tables, and other anchors.
An anchor has a name which specifies the path where pfctl(8) can be used
to access the anchor to perform operations on it, such as attaching child
anchors to it or loading rules into it. Anchors may be nested, with com-
ponents separated by `/' characters, similar to how file system hierar-
chies are laid out. The main ruleset is actually the default anchor, so
filter and translation rules, for example, may also be contained in any
anchor.
An anchor can reference another anchor attachment point using the follow-
ing kinds of rules:
nat-anchor <name>
Evaluates the nat rules in the specified anchor.
rdr-anchor <name>
Evaluates the rdr rules in the specified anchor.
binat-anchor <name>
Evaluates the binat rules in the specified anchor.
anchor <name>
Evaluates the filter rules in the specified anchor.
loadanchor <name> from <file>
Loads the rules from the specified file into the anchor name.
When evaluation of the main ruleset reaches an anchor rule, pf(4) will
proceed to evaluate all rules specified in that anchor.
Matching filter and translation rules marked with the quick option are
final and abort the evaluation of the rules in other anchors and the main
ruleset. If the anchor itself is marked with the quick option, ruleset
evaluation will terminate when the anchor is exited if the packet is
matched by any rule within the anchor.
anchor rules are evaluated relative to the anchor in which they are con-
tained. For example, all anchor rules specified in the main ruleset will
reference anchor attachment points underneath the main ruleset, and
anchor rules specified in a file loaded from a loadanchor rule will be
attached under that anchor point.
Rules may be contained in anchor attachment points which do not contain
any rules when the main ruleset is loaded, and later such anchors can be
manipulated through pfctl(8) without reloading the main ruleset or other
anchors. For example,
ext_if = "kue0"
block on $ext_if all
anchor spam
pass out on $ext_if all
pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any \
to $ext_if port smtp
blocks all packets on the external interface by default, then evaluates
all rules in the anchor named "spam", and finally passes all outgoing
connections and incoming connections to port 25.
# echo "block in quick from 1.2.3.4 to any" | \
pfctl -a spam -f -
This loads a single rule into the anchor, which blocks all packets from a
specific address.
The anchor can also be populated by adding a loadanchor rule after the
anchor rule:
anchor spam
load anchor spam from "/etc/pf-spam.conf"
When pfctl(8) loads pf.conf, it will also load all the rules from the
file /etc/pf-spam.conf into the anchor.
Optionally, anchor rules can specify packet filtering parameters using
the same syntax as filter rules. When parameters are used, the anchor
rule is only evaluated for matching packets. This allows conditional
evaluation of anchors, like:
block on $ext_if all
anchor spam proto tcp from any to any port smtp
pass out on $ext_if all
pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any to $ext_if port smtp
The rules inside anchor spam are only evaluated for tcp packets with des-
tination port 25. Hence,
# echo "block in quick from 1.2.3.4 to any" | \
pfctl -a spam -f -
will only block connections from 1.2.3.4 to port 25.
Anchors may end with the asterisk (`*') character, which signifies that
all anchors attached at that point should be evaluated in the alphabeti-
cal ordering of their anchor name. For example,
anchor "spam/*"
will evaluate each rule in each anchor attached to the spam anchor. Note
that it will only evaluate anchors that are directly attached to the spam
anchor, and will not descend to evaluate anchors recursively.
Since anchors are evaluated relative to the anchor in which they are con-
tained, there is a mechanism for accessing the parent and ancestor
anchors of a given anchor. Similar to file system path name resolution,
if the sequence ``..'' appears as an anchor path component, the parent
anchor of the current anchor in the path evaluation at that point will
become the new current anchor. As an example, consider the following:
# echo ' anchor "spam/allowed" ' | pfctl -f -
# echo -e ' anchor "../banned" \n pass' | \
pfctl -a spam/allowed -f -
Evaluation of the main ruleset will lead into the spam/allowed anchor,
which will evaluate the rules in the spam/banned anchor, if any, before
finally evaluating the pass rule.
Filter rule anchors can also be loaded inline in the ruleset within a
brace ('{' '}') delimited block. Brace delimited blocks may contain
rules or other brace-delimited blocks. When anchors are loaded this way
the anchor name becomes optional.
anchor "external" on egress {
block
anchor out {
pass proto tcp from any to port { 25, 80, 443 }
}
pass in proto tcp to any port 22
}
Since the parser specification for anchor names is a string, any refer-
ence to an anchor name containing `/' characters will require double
quote (`"') characters around the anchor name.
TRANSLATION EXAMPLES
This example maps incoming requests on port 80 to port 8080, on which a
daemon is running (because, for example, it is not run as root, and
therefore lacks permission to bind to port 80).
# use a macro for the interface name, so it can be changed easily
ext_if = "ne3"
# map daemon on 8080 to appear to be on 80
rdr on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080
If the pass modifier is given, packets matching the translation rule are
passed without inspecting the filter rules:
rdr pass on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 \
port 8080
In the example below, vlan12 is configured as 192.168.168.1; the machine
translates all packets coming from 192.168.168.0/24 to 204.92.77.111 when
they are going out any interface except vlan12. This has the net effect
of making traffic from the 192.168.168.0/24 network appear as though it
is the Internet routable address 204.92.77.111 to nodes behind any inter-
face on the router except for the nodes on vlan12. (Thus, 192.168.168.1
can talk to the 192.168.168.0/24 nodes.)
nat on ! vlan12 from 192.168.168.0/24 to any -> 204.92.77.111
In the example below, the machine sits between a fake internal
144.19.74.* network, and a routable external IP of 204.92.77.100. The
nonat rule excludes protocol AH from being translated.
# NO NAT
no nat on $ext_if proto ah from 144.19.74.0/24 to any
nat on $ext_if from 144.19.74.0/24 to any -> 204.92.77.100
In the example below, packets bound for one specific server, as well as
those generated by the sysadmins are not proxied; all other connections
are.
# NO RDR
no rdr on $int_if proto { tcp, udp } from any to $server port 80
no rdr on $int_if proto { tcp, udp } from $sysadmins to any port 80
rdr on $int_if proto { tcp, udp } from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 \
port 80
This longer example uses both a NAT and a redirection. The external
interface has the address 157.161.48.183. On localhost, we are running
ftp-proxy(8), waiting for FTP sessions to be redirected to it. The three
mandatory anchors for ftp-proxy(8) are omitted from this example; see the
ftp-proxy(8) manpage.
# NAT
# Translate outgoing packets' source addresses (any protocol).
# In this case, any address but the gateway's external address is mapped.
nat on $ext_if inet from ! ($ext_if) to any -> ($ext_if)
# NAT PROXYING
# Map outgoing packets' source port to an assigned proxy port instead of
# an arbitrary port.
# In this case, proxy outgoing isakmp with port 500 on the gateway.
nat on $ext_if inet proto udp from any port = isakmp to any -> ($ext_if) \
port 500
# BINAT
# Translate outgoing packets' source address (any protocol).
# Translate incoming packets' destination address to an internal machine
# (bidirectional).
binat on $ext_if from 10.1.2.150 to any -> $ext_if
# RDR
# Translate incoming packets' destination addresses.
# As an example, redirect a TCP and UDP port to an internal machine.
rdr on $ext_if inet proto tcp from any to ($ext_if) port 8080 \
-> 10.1.2.151 port 22
rdr on $ext_if inet proto udp from any to ($ext_if) port 8080 \
-> 10.1.2.151 port 53
# RDR
# Translate outgoing ftp control connections to send them to localhost
# for proxying with ftp-proxy(8) running on port 8021.
rdr on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 21 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8021
In this example, a NAT gateway is set up to translate internal addresses
using a pool of public addresses (192.0.2.16/28) and to redirect incoming
web server connections to a group of web servers on the internal network.
# NAT LOAD BALANCE
# Translate outgoing packets' source addresses using an address pool.
# A given source address is always translated to the same pool address by
# using the source-hash keyword.
nat on $ext_if inet from any to any -> 192.0.2.16/28 source-hash
# RDR ROUND ROBIN
# Translate incoming web server connections to a group of web servers on
# the internal network.
rdr on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 \
-> { 10.1.2.155, 10.1.2.160, 10.1.2.161 } round-robin
FILTER EXAMPLES
# The external interface is kue0
# (157.161.48.183, the only routable address)
# and the private network is 10.0.0.0/8, for which we are doing NAT.
# use a macro for the interface name, so it can be changed easily
ext_if = "kue0"
# normalize all incoming traffic
scrub in on $ext_if all fragment reassemble
# block and log everything by default
block return log on $ext_if all
# block anything coming from source we have no back routes for
block in from no-route to any
# block packets whose ingress interface does not match the one in
# the route back to their source address
block in from urpf-failed to any
# block and log outgoing packets that do not have our address as source,
# they are either spoofed or something is misconfigured (NAT disabled,
# for instance), we want to be nice and do not send out garbage.
block out log quick on $ext_if from ! 157.161.48.183 to any
# silently drop broadcasts (cable modem noise)
block in quick on $ext_if from any to 255.255.255.255
# block and log incoming packets from reserved address space and invalid
# addresses, they are either spoofed or misconfigured, we cannot reply to
# them anyway (hence, no return-rst).
block in log quick on $ext_if from { 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, \
192.168.0.0/16, 255.255.255.255/32 } to any
# ICMP
# pass out/in certain ICMP queries and keep state (ping)
# state matching is done on host addresses and ICMP id (not type/code),
# so replies (like 0/0 for 8/0) will match queries
# ICMP error messages (which always refer to a TCP/UDP packet) are
# handled by the TCP/UDP states
pass on $ext_if inet proto icmp all icmp-type 8 code 0
# UDP
# pass out all UDP connections and keep state
pass out on $ext_if proto udp all
# pass in certain UDP connections and keep state (DNS)
pass in on $ext_if proto udp from any to any port domain
# TCP
# pass out all TCP connections and modulate state
pass out on $ext_if proto tcp all modulate state
# pass in certain TCP connections and keep state (SSH, SMTP, DNS, IDENT)
pass in on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port { ssh, smtp, domain, \
auth }
# Do not allow Windows 9x SMTP connections since they are typically
# a viral worm. Alternately we could limit these OSes to 1 connection each.
block in on $ext_if proto tcp from any os {"Windows 95", "Windows 98"} \
to any port smtp
# IPv6
# pass in/out all IPv6 traffic: note that we have to enable this in two
# different ways, on both our physical interface and our tunnel
pass quick on gif0 inet6
pass quick on $ext_if proto ipv6
# Packet Tagging
# three interfaces: $int_if, $ext_if, and $wifi_if (wireless). NAT is
# being done on $ext_if for all outgoing packets. tag packets in on
# $int_if and pass those tagged packets out on $ext_if. all other
# outgoing packets (i.e., packets from the wireless network) are only
# permitted to access port 80.
pass in on $int_if from any to any tag INTNET
pass in on $wifi_if from any to any
block out on $ext_if from any to any
pass out quick on $ext_if tagged INTNET
pass out on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80
# tag incoming packets as they are redirected to spamd(8). use the tag
# to pass those packets through the packet filter.
rdr on $ext_if inet proto tcp from <spammers> to port smtp \
tag SPAMD -> 127.0.0.1 port spamd
block in on $ext_if
pass in on $ext_if inet proto tcp tagged SPAMD
GRAMMAR
Syntax for pf.conf in BNF:
line = ( option | pf-rule | nat-rule | binat-rule | rdr-rule |
antispoof-rule | altq-rule | queue-rule | trans-anchors |
anchor-rule | anchor-close | load-anchor | table-rule |
include )
option = "set" ( [ "timeout" ( timeout | "{" timeout-list "}" ) ] |
[ "ruleset-optimization" [ "none" | "basic" | "profile" ]] |
[ "optimization" [ "default" | "normal" |
"high-latency" | "satellite" |
"aggressive" | "conservative" ] ]
[ "limit" ( limit-item | "{" limit-list "}" ) ] |
[ "loginterface" ( interface-name | "none" ) ] |
[ "block-policy" ( "drop" | "return" ) ] |
[ "state-policy" ( "if-bound" | "floating" ) ]
[ "state-defaults" state-opts ]
[ "require-order" ( "yes" | "no" ) ]
[ "fingerprints" filename ] |
[ "skip on" ifspec ] |
[ "debug" ( "none" | "urgent" | "misc" | "loud" ) ] )
pf-rule = action [ ( "in" | "out" ) ]
[ "log" [ "(" logopts ")"] ] [ "quick" ]
[ "on" ifspec ] [ "fastroute" | route ] [ af ] [ protospec ]
hosts [ filteropt-list ]
logopts = logopt [ "," logopts ]
logopt = "all" | "user" | "to" interface-name
filteropt-list = filteropt-list filteropt | filteropt
filteropt = user | group | flags | icmp-type | icmp6-type | "tos" tos |
( "no" | "keep" | "modulate" | "synproxy" ) "state"
[ "(" state-opts ")" ] |
"fragment" | "no-df" | "min-ttl" number | "set-tos" tos |
"max-mss" number | "random-id" | "reassemble tcp" |
fragmentation | "allow-opts" |
"label" string | "tag" string | [ ! ] "tagged" string |
"queue" ( string | "(" string [ [ "," ] string ] ")" ) |
"rtable" number | "probability" number"%"
nat-rule = [ "no" ] "nat" [ "pass" [ "log" [ "(" logopts ")" ] ] ]
[ "on" ifspec ] [ af ]
[ protospec ] hosts [ "tag" string ] [ "tagged" string ]
[ "->" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
[ portspec ] [ pooltype ] [ "static-port" ] ]
binat-rule = [ "no" ] "binat" [ "pass" [ "log" [ "(" logopts ")" ] ] ]
[ "on" interface-name ] [ af ]
[ "proto" ( proto-name | proto-number ) ]
"from" address [ "/" mask-bits ] "to" ipspec
[ "tag" string ] [ "tagged" string ]
[ "->" address [ "/" mask-bits ] ]
rdr-rule = [ "no" ] "rdr" [ "pass" [ "log" [ "(" logopts ")" ] ] ]
[ "on" ifspec ] [ af ]
[ protospec ] hosts [ "tag" string ] [ "tagged" string ]
[ "->" ( redirhost | "{" redirhost-list "}" )
[ portspec ] [ pooltype ] ]
antispoof-rule = "antispoof" [ "log" ] [ "quick" ]
"for" ifspec [ af ] [ "label" string ]
table-rule = "table" "<" string ">" [ tableopts-list ]
tableopts-list = tableopts-list tableopts | tableopts
tableopts = "persist" | "const" | "counters" | "file" string |
"{" [ tableaddr-list ] "}"
tableaddr-list = tableaddr-list [ "," ] tableaddr-spec | tableaddr-spec
tableaddr-spec = [ "!" ] tableaddr [ "/" mask-bits ]
tableaddr = hostname | ifspec | "self" |
ipv4-dotted-quad | ipv6-coloned-hex
altq-rule = "altq on" interface-name queueopts-list
"queue" subqueue
queue-rule = "queue" string [ "on" interface-name ] queueopts-list
subqueue
anchor-rule = "anchor" [ string ] [ ( "in" | "out" ) ] [ "on" ifspec ]
[ af ] [ protospec ] [ hosts ] [ filteropt-list ] [ "{" ]
anchor-close = "}"
trans-anchors = ( "nat-anchor" | "rdr-anchor" | "binat-anchor" ) string
[ "on" ifspec ] [ af ] [ "proto" ] [ protospec ] [ hosts ]
load-anchor = "load anchor" string "from" filename
queueopts-list = queueopts-list queueopts | queueopts
queueopts = [ "bandwidth" bandwidth-spec ] |
[ "qlimit" number ] | [ "tbrsize" number ] |
[ "priority" number ] | [ schedulers ]
schedulers = ( cbq-def | priq-def | hfsc-def )
bandwidth-spec = "number" ( "b" | "Kb" | "Mb" | "Gb" | "%" )
action = "pass" | "block" [ return ] | [ "no" ] "scrub"
return = "drop" | "return" | "return-rst" [ "( ttl" number ")" ] |
"return-icmp" [ "(" icmpcode [ [ "," ] icmp6code ] ")" ] |
"return-icmp6" [ "(" icmp6code ")" ]
icmpcode = ( icmp-code-name | icmp-code-number )
icmp6code = ( icmp6-code-name | icmp6-code-number )
ifspec = ( [ "!" ] ( interface-name | interface-group ) ) |
"{" interface-list "}"
interface-list = [ "!" ] ( interface-name | interface-group )
[ [ "," ] interface-list ]
route = ( "route-to" | "reply-to" | "dup-to" )
( routehost | "{" routehost-list "}" )
[ pooltype ]
af = "inet" | "inet6"
protospec = "proto" ( proto-name | proto-number |
"{" proto-list "}" )
proto-list = ( proto-name | proto-number ) [ [ "," ] proto-list ]
hosts = "all" |
"from" ( "any" | "no-route" | "urpf-failed" | "self" | host |
"{" host-list "}" | "route" string ) [ port ] [ os ]
"to" ( "any" | "no-route" | "self" | host |
"{" host-list "}" | "route" string ) [ port ]
ipspec = "any" | host | "{" host-list "}"
host = [ "!" ] ( address [ "/" mask-bits ] | "<" string ">" )
redirhost = address [ "/" mask-bits ]
routehost = "(" interface-name [ address [ "/" mask-bits ] ] ")"
address = ( interface-name | interface-group |
"(" ( interface-name | interface-group ) ")" |
hostname | ipv4-dotted-quad | ipv6-coloned-hex )
host-list = host [ [ "," ] host-list ]
redirhost-list = redirhost [ [ "," ] redirhost-list ]
routehost-list = routehost [ [ "," ] routehost-list ]
port = "port" ( unary-op | binary-op | "{" op-list "}" )
portspec = "port" ( number | name ) [ ":" ( "*" | number | name ) ]
os = "os" ( os-name | "{" os-list "}" )
user = "user" ( unary-op | binary-op | "{" op-list "}" )
group = "group" ( unary-op | binary-op | "{" op-list "}" )
unary-op = [ "=" | "!=" | "<" | "<=" | ">" | ">=" ]
( name | number )
binary-op = number ( "<>" | "><" | ":" ) number
op-list = ( unary-op | binary-op ) [ [ "," ] op-list ]
os-name = operating-system-name
os-list = os-name [ [ "," ] os-list ]
flags = "flags" ( [ flag-set ] "/" flag-set | "any" )
flag-set = [ "F" ] [ "S" ] [ "R" ] [ "P" ] [ "A" ] [ "U" ] [ "E" ]
[ "W" ]
icmp-type = "icmp-type" ( icmp-type-code | "{" icmp-list "}" )
icmp6-type = "icmp6-type" ( icmp-type-code | "{" icmp-list "}" )
icmp-type-code = ( icmp-type-name | icmp-type-number )
[ "code" ( icmp-code-name | icmp-code-number ) ]
icmp-list = icmp-type-code [ [ "," ] icmp-list ]
tos = ( "lowdelay" | "throughput" | "reliability" |
[ "0x" ] number )
state-opts = state-opt [ [ "," ] state-opts ]
state-opt = ( "max" number | "no-sync" | timeout | "sloppy" | "pflow" |
"source-track" [ ( "rule" | "global" ) ] |
"max-src-nodes" number | "max-src-states" number |
"max-src-conn" number |
"max-src-conn-rate" number "/" number |
"overload" "<" string ">" [ "flush" ] |
"if-bound" | "floating" )
fragmentation = [ "fragment reassemble" | "fragment crop" |
"fragment drop-ovl" ]
timeout-list = timeout [ [ "," ] timeout-list ]
timeout = ( "tcp.first" | "tcp.opening" | "tcp.established" |
"tcp.closing" | "tcp.finwait" | "tcp.closed" |
"udp.first" | "udp.single" | "udp.multiple" |
"icmp.first" | "icmp.error" |
"other.first" | "other.single" | "other.multiple" |
"frag" | "interval" | "src.track" |
"adaptive.start" | "adaptive.end" ) number
limit-list = limit-item [ [ "," ] limit-list ]
limit-item = ( "states" | "frags" | "src-nodes" ) number
pooltype = ( "bitmask" | "random" |
"source-hash" [ ( hex-key | string-key ) ] |
"round-robin" ) [ sticky-address ]
subqueue = string | "{" queue-list "}"
queue-list = string [ [ "," ] string ]
cbq-def = "cbq" [ "(" cbq-opt [ [ "," ] cbq-opt ] ")" ]
priq-def = "priq" [ "(" priq-opt [ [ "," ] priq-opt ] ")" ]
hfsc-def = "hfsc" [ "(" hfsc-opt [ [ "," ] hfsc-opt ] ")" ]
cbq-opt = ( "default" | "borrow" | "red" | "ecn" | "rio" )
priq-opt = ( "default" | "red" | "ecn" | "rio" )
hfsc-opt = ( "default" | "red" | "ecn" | "rio" |
linkshare-sc | realtime-sc | upperlimit-sc )
linkshare-sc = "linkshare" sc-spec
realtime-sc = "realtime" sc-spec
upperlimit-sc = "upperlimit" sc-spec
sc-spec = ( bandwidth-spec |
"(" bandwidth-spec number bandwidth-spec ")" )
include = "include" filename
FILES
/etc/hosts Host name database.
/etc/pf.conf Default location of the ruleset file.
/etc/pf.os Default location of OS fingerprints.
/etc/protocols Protocol name database.
/etc/services Service name database.
BUGS
Due to a lock order reversal (LOR) with the socket layer, the use of the
group and user filter parameter in conjuction with a Giant-free netstack
can result in a deadlock. A workaround is available under the
debug.pfugidhack sysctl which is automatically enabled when a user /
group rule is added or log(user) is specified.
Route labels are not supported by the FreeBSD route(4) system. Rules
with a route label do not match any traffic.
SEE ALSOaltq(4), carp(4), icmp(4), icmp6(4), ip(4), ip6(4), pf(4), pflow(4),
pfsync(4), route(4), tcp(4), udp(4), hosts(5), pf.os(5), protocols(5),
services(5), ftp-proxy(8), pfctl(8), pflogd(8), route(8)HISTORY
The pf.conf file format first appeared in OpenBSD 3.0.
FreeBSD 10.1 January 31 2009 FreeBSD 10.1